But she felt the speciousness of her words. How could one face the Gorgon-image of this difficulty as if it were like any other? His silence seemed to echo her thought. Slowly he rose again from his chair, plunged his hands deeply into his pockets, with a gesture she remembered when he was troubled, and went and leaned in the jamb of the window. What was he thinking, she wondered, as he glanced vacantly up and down the long featureless street? Smiling inwardly, perhaps, at the crudeness of her methods, the emptiness of her threats. For, after all--putting the case at its basest--if the money were really what had tempted him, how, with that fortune at his feet, could any offer of hers divert his purpose? A clock she had not noticed began to tick insistently. It seemed to be measuring out the last seconds before some nightmare crash that she felt herself powerless to arrest. Powerless, at least-- She saw his expression change, and he turned and moved back quickly into the room. “There’s my mother coming down the street. She’s been to market--my mother does her own marketing.” He spoke with a faint smile of irony. “But you needn’t be afraid of meeting her. She won’t come in here; she never does at this hour. She’ll go straight to the kitchen.” Kate had begun to tremble again. “Afraid? Why should I be afraid of your mother? Or she of me? It’s you who are afraid now!” she exclaimed. His face seemed to age as she watched it. “Well, yes, I am,” he acknowledged. “I’ve been a good deal of a nuisance to her first and last; and she’s old and ill. Let’s leave her out too, if we can.” As he spoke, they heard, through the thin wall, the fumbling of a latch-key in the outer lock. Kate moved to the door; her decision was taken. “You want to leave her out? Then promise me--give me your word that you’ll go. You know you can count on me if you need help. Only you must promise now; if not, I shall call your mother in--I shall tell her everything.” Her hand was on the doorknob when he caught it back. “Don’t!” The street door opened and closed again, a dragging step passed through the narrow hall, and a door was opened into the region from which the negress with the greasy apron had emerged in a waft of cooking. “Phemia!” they heard Mrs. Fenno call in a tired elderly voice. “I promise,” her son said, loosening his hold on Kate’s wrist. The two continued to stand opposite each other with lowered heads. At length Mrs. Clephane moved away. “I’m going now. You understand that you must leave at once ... tomorrow?” She paused. “I’ll do all I can for you as long as you keep your word; if you break it I won’t spare you. I’ve got the means to beat you in the end; only don’t make me use them--don’t make me!” He stood a few feet away from her, his eyes on the ground. Decidedly, she had beaten him, and he understood it. If there were any degrees left in such misery she supposed that the worst of it was over. XIV.